Poppy
by Trish Tavor
Summary: Madam Pomfrey could often be seen shooing off visitors, warning them that her patients needed their rest. But was there more behind her cool, though professional, demeanour? Oneshot written for the Hogwarts Houses Challenges Forum.


A/N: Written for the Hogwarts Houses Challenges forum.

Camp Hogwarts, Cabin Longbottom.

Activity: First Aid - write about being a healer.

* * *

"Watch the patient, Poppy!" Madam Hoover bellowed at the young healer, rushing out of the room to whatever new emergency had just occurred.

 _Always something new,_ Poppy thought with a wry smile, though she couldn't keep the sarcasm from her thoughts. Not to get it wrong – Poppy loved her job. More than anything else. She'd always known that one day she would get a position where she could help people and here she was. But the busyness was starting to get to her. It had been much quieter until a month ago, when whispers of what was starting to be considered the _First Wizarding War_ began to circulate. Since then, Poppy couldn't remember the last time she'd gotten so much as a coffee break.

Wandering slowly over to the bed holding a newer patient, a girl who couldn't be more than six, Poppy gave her a small smile.

"How are you feeling?" the blonde witch asked. The child looked up, tired eyes meeting Poppy's.

"Alright, I guess." She sounded unsure of herself, though her age was most certainly the cause.

"What's your name, dearie?" Poppy questioned, trying to make the child feel more comfortable.

"Milah," she responded, her brown eyes looking at Poppy, reflecting a certain fear the healer had seen in anyone who had been through what this child certainly had.

Poppy gave the girl a tender look. "Can I see it?" she asked. All she had been told was that the girl had broken her wrist in some struggle with _He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named._ Not him personally, of course, but some of his followers. Her parents had disappeared in the struggle and her older brother, who had his apparition license, had gotten them out just in time. The lad was unhurt, but sitting in a stunned and dramatic silence down in the waiting room. Whatever had happened, it couldn't have been good.

Nodding slowly, Milah held out her damaged left wrist. It was bent at an awkward angle, a small piece of bone sticking out the side. Poppy winced. Such breaks tended to hurt like hell, though they were easy enough to fix. Just a bit of Skele-Gro and she would be back to normal.

"I have to go for a moment, but I'll be right back, alright? We'll have this fixed in no time," Poppy said, gently placing the girl's arm back on her chest.

Milah's eyes widened with fear and she shook her head. "Don't go. They'll find me," she pleaded with Poppy. "Please."

The healer knew she had other patients to attend to, but at the same time, Madam Hoover had clearly told her to watch this one. Biting her lip in consideration, Poppy finally nodded.

"Alright. But you need your rest. Try to fall asleep, okay?" The child looked on the brink of exhaustion, and Poppy was sure it couldn't be long before she drifted off.

Nodding, though the action was barely visible, Milah held out her undamaged arm. "Can you hold my hand?" she asked, and Poppy's heart almost broke for her. Certainly she had been through a lot to be asking that of a total stranger.

Then again, she was very young.

"Of course," Poppy told her, taking the child's hand in hers. Milah gave a soft smile, though it seemed almost unnatural on the child's face. She closed her eyes and it couldn't have been five minutes before she drifted off. This was probably better, anyway. While Skele-Gro was a simple fix, it sure as hell was also a painful one.

The healer pushed a stray strand of blonde hair behind her ear and stood from her perch, laying the child's hand gently beside her on the bed. Then she turned and walked to the door, almost bumping into a frantic looking man, whose wide eyes met hers.

"Where's my daughter? I heard she was here?" The man seemed beyond upset, as though he'd seen the dark lord himself. Which, if his daughter was the girl Poppy had just tended to, wasn't far fetched. "She's five years old, brown hair and eyes. About…" he made a hand gesture, "this tall."

Poppy gave the man a small but forced smile. "She's sleeping. She needs her rest. If you simply wait over there – "

"I need to see her now!" The man almost wailed. Poppy looked up and down the hall, but no other healers were in sight. It was her call to make and the young witch couldn't see the humanity in not allowing a frantic father to see his daughter.

"The third bed on the right. I need to go grab a few supplies but I should be back in a moment. She will be fine," Poppy assured him, before turning and heading down the hallway.

* * *

When the young witch came back, the girl wasn't breathing. Her heart had stopped.

Poppy hadn't noticed anything initially. She had looked so peaceful there. Like she was still resting.

But she wasn't.

When the young healer had attempted to pour the Skele-Gro down her throat, the girl's reflexes hadn't responded. Poppy, becoming worried, had checked her pulse.

There was none.

The frantic witch had screamed for someone, anyone, to come and help her.

When her superior finally showed up, all she could hear was the overwhelmed girl whispering.

S _he was just resting. She just needed her rest._

The words were spoken over and over again.

* * *

Poppy attended the girl's funeral. It seemed fitting, as she had been the reason for the child's death.

For Milah's death.

Not that anyone at St. Mungo's had blamed her. She was young. She was new. She couldn't have known not to let a strange man who claimed to be the child's father into the hospital room.

They said cause of death was the killing curse.

The girl's brother had also disappeared and the parents had not been found.

When presented with the case, the Ministry had concluded that she must have seen something she wasn't meant to see and the death eaters had come back to finish her off. They said that Poppy couldn't blame herself.

But she did.

* * *

Poppy Pomfrey was never the same after that day. Visitors coming to see the patients often described her as being slightly cold and a bit unfriendly.

No one could deny, however, that she knew what she was doing. No one ever died under Poppy's care, not if there was any chance of them being helped.

"He needs his rest. She needs rest. They need rest," she could be heard saying throughout the day, a common excuse to remove visitors from the premises.

When she found her way to Hogwarts, the students rarely frequented her halls if they could help it. Poppy preferred to be alone, they thought, though they couldn't be more wrong.

Poppy was afraid of failing again and kept to herself to give everything she had to the students in her care.

* * *

The night after the battle of Hogwarts, when the dead were collected and gathered together, there were rumors that Pomfrey had wandered among them, stopping briefly at each body.

"Rest well," she'd whispered, before moving on.

* * *

At the woman's funeral, the priest who spoke over her gave a small smile as he spoke the final words that accompanied the woman being lowered into the ground.

"Madam Pomfrey. Beloved Healer. May she rest in peace."


End file.
